Michael
The way back to Reen was a silent one. His guard must have noticed his distant attitude and kept quiet, they even used Eydis’s sign language to give orders and call out potential problems. Michael noticed little of all that, he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts and mental preparations for what he had to do once they reached Reen.
Michael did not share with the others what Ferrekxan had said, he didn’t even know how to say it. If what they predicted was true, then that would mean that he would go to war with Eydis’s people and he didn’t know how she would take that.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye and multiple possibilities ran through his imagination, most being bad. She would find out soon anyway but not yet.
Eydis had other ideas though and looked at him with suspicion. “Enough of this. What is the problem,” she signed at him.
“What do you mean,” Michael asked surprised.
She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “You have been stealing glances at me since we left the mountains. What did the dragon tell you and why are you thinking so hard?”
Michael smiled, there probably wasn't anyone else who knew him as well as Eydis did. They had spent nearly every day with each other for years after all.
“Can you give us some privacy,” Michael asked the rest of his guard loudly. Silas and Erhen immediately fell back a few meters while Lance and Zeke sped up to put a few more meters between them. No one argued or even questioned it, but Eydis seemed even more curious now than before.
“Things are about to get hectic. I have been thinking about how to break this to you because I am honestly not sure how you will take this,” he started.
Eydis frowned and signed, “Stop lurking around and just spit it out.”
“Ferrekxan told me that something is going to attack the kingdom from the west. We think it is going to the Rangda tribes,” Michael explained and watched her reaction.
Her frown deepened as she thought. “If they do, they will attack your uncle, so why do we care?”
“I can’t just let them run rampant in the kingdom’s territory. I intend to go to Grent to help,” Michael said.
Eydis rode next to him while staring at the road ahead, Michael waited for a reaction for a whole minute before he added, “You don’t have to come along, Eydis. No one is gonna blame you if you refuse to fight your own kin. At least no one who’s opinion matters.”
“What? No way,” she signed with a smirk. “My family is dead, and the rest of my clan are spread as far as slavery can take them. There are no kin for me left to fight in an army of Rangda tribes. So, let’s just go over there, bonk some heads, and if we are lucky, we can catch your uncle alone with his pants down or something.”
If someone just read what Eydis was saying they would probably think that she was very cavalier about the whole thing, but Michael was present and saw everything she didn’t say. He might not be able to judge her true thoughts from her voice, but the voice isn’t the only thing someone could read a person’s true thoughts out of. Eydis was not a good liar, never had been, she had trouble controlling her expressions, and while she was grinning broadly the smile didn’t even remotely reach her eyes. Her hand movements were fast and imprecise as she tried to convince him as fast as possible that she had no grievances about fighting her people.
Michael knew her about as well as she did him so he knew that she would never admit to any of this if he pressed her for answers. She would deny it harder than a murderer on trial and become more stubborn about it the more Michael pressed. He knew all this so he wouldn’t try right now, he would wait for a good moment or maybe she would even come to him first if he gave her time.
“Alright then but you will have to promise me not to jump my uncle and try to gorge his eyes out the moment you see him,” Michael answered and continued watching her reaction. His gaze of course didn’t get past her, and she probably knew that he didn’t believe a single word he was saying.
“No problem, I met him before and didn’t try anything, didn’t I? A little bit of trust please.”
Michael just hoped that the stress of the whole situation wouldn’t push her over the edge or at least that he would be present to pull her back from a cliff she could never return from.
- A few hours later -
They arrived at Reen Castle close to evening and Michael instantly went to work in calling an emergency meeting with everyone that meant anything for this kind of emergency. Ferrekxan hadn’t been able to give him a timetable for the invasion but he had told him that the dark emotions were still gathering from many kilometers around so they shouldn’t be ready to strike just yet.
A response had to be made as soon as possible though, even if the Rangda took a month or more for their attack every moment they had to prepare would increase their odds of getting out of this with only minimal damage.
The council had gathered as quickly as possible, an order marked with red, meaning an existential threat to the county or duchy, was unprecedented since the start of the color system so everyone hurried as if their life depended on it, which, as far as they knew, it could.
Michael sat at the head of the great hall on his long chair looking down at his subjects while one after another his council members, knights, nobles, and other important figures entered the room. He wouldn’t wait for everyone to arrive, people like Rayakan and Kiran or Irem Stanes would take a while to even get the message in the town, not even mentioning getting up here.
As most of the castle-bound attendees had reached the council chamber Michael started talking, with Parcival and two more servants to his right writing down what he was saying to hand out the information to the latecomers.
“Welcome everyone. I apologize for the sudden call, but something has been brought to my attention by one of my sources that cannot be ignored. To get straight to the point, we predict a massed assault by a confederation of Rangda Tribes on the western borders of the kingdom, and while we do not share the best relations with our western neighbor, we will not shirk our duty to defend the kingdom even if it means fighting alongside House Grim.”
Shock, worry, and a multitude of other emotions spread throughout the knights, nobles, and guards. Michael was glad that he preempted any discussion about helping because he saw exactly the same argument in the eyes of multiple men present.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“What is our plan, milord,” Baron Uger asked, he was as often present in Reen because of the proximity of his own estate not even a full day’s travel to the north.
“We will prepare for war, of course. Geron, I want you to start a partial mobilization. Get everything ready to fully mobilize if the threat shows itself to be real.”
The knight commander nodded dutifully and began scribbling something onto a piece of paper.
“Milord, you said if the threat shows itself to be real. How likely is an attack and what kind of scale can we expect,” another noble asked with clear worry in his voice. He was a smaller local noble out of Emall that had come to complain about something, what exactly Michael had forgotten or not heard yet. This meant though that his property was much closer to the threat than most.
“My source is trustworthy, so the likelihood is very high. As for the size of the attack, I can’t be too certain. The theory is that the clans are gathering for a so-called Kirhen, which is an alliance of all the clans to combat a certain threat. We can say with some certainty that this will not be an easy fight and definitely not one that Grent can take on its own, royal intervention might even be needed,” Michael answered. His explanation did little to quell the rising concern in the noble, maybe it even achieved the contrary but right now it would be good for them to panic just a little bit if it stops them from doing something stupid.
Michael turned his attention back to Geron and the knight asked, “How much are we going to mobilize for this campaign?”
“We should prepare to bring everything to bear what we can. We will of course have to keep our borders toward especially the boar clan secure, but we will suffer for years to come if we don’t achieve a decisive victory.”
Murmurs went through the gathered audience as they silently discussed what could be done.
Geron was the first to speak up and he did so with a deliberately stern voice, “We will start gathering supplies for a campaign to the west and pull troops from the town garrisons and borders, then. We are the primary military power in the region, and no one can stand against us if we put all our weight into a fight!”
This declaration seemed to lessen the doubt and concern in many and Michael could even see the fiery determination of the knight infect some of the other men.
“Very good. The forges will focus on arms and armament production for the time being. I want messengers sent out to the nobles informing them of a likely call to arms soon. Lastly, I will go ahead with a detachment of knights to Grent to inform House Grim about the impending threat and scout out the situation. Viscount Telp, you will be in charge while I am gone of civil matters and Geron of military matters,” Michael quickly threw out multiple orders.
After quickly giving everyone an outline of what was going to happen, followed the much more longwinded discussions and planning phase in which different people took responsibility for different tasks. Of course, Michael had to again defend his decision to go on ahead to Grent instead of just sending a messenger and even if he could argue it either way, he just had a deep feeling that he needed to do this himself. He was at least sure that the feeling wasn’t Ferrekxan pushing him, so he didn’t feel too bad about following it. His father had always led from the front and Michael would be damned if he would hide in his castle while others fought.
The assembly quickly began splintering into multiple discussions as people got assigned to duties that fit their skill sets.
“No, let’s keep everything but the forge going as normal. There is little reason for us to throw normal proceedings overboard because of a threat to our neighbor,” Michael shook his head at the group he was currently talking to.
“I agree. The implementation of the new tax system is a slow and continuous process if we interrupt it for every unrelated issue then we will never get it done,” Viscount Telp added.
The tax reform had quickly proven to be the biggest undertaking of all of Michael’s plans even overcoming the other behemoths of the mining project or the great forge. Viscount Telp had, as Michael had expected, shown a great deal of logistical skill in implementing it and they were ahead of schedule for now. This of course didn’t mean that they were done yet, training tax collectors, taking census of the population, writing tax codes, and building forts to hold the collected taxes were all time-consuming undertakings. And of course, the nobles were doing their best to trip them up at any opportunity at all, which meant that the initiative is much more developed in Reen than it is in Emall as any project that doesn’t agree with the faction of nobility that opposed him.
Michael took these delays with little concern though, they were still doing well mostly due to the already planned delays and the statistics don’t lie, every region in which the new tax system had been established saw an uptick in tax income. The first signs also indicated the estimated rise in wealth for those regions, if that is because of the freed serfs, the new tax system, or both is hard to tell though. They would probably only see conclusive results after a decade after the implementation.
He had been kind of surprised by some of the nobles following his example in freeing their serfs after a couple of months. Lord Ragar had been the first after he had come to Michael to have a long discussion about the subject and many of the other members of the loyalist camp had followed suit in the year after that.
Through them, Michael’s opinion of the nobility had started to rise the more he conversed with them, they were mostly the younger nobles, but Michael appreciated them, nonetheless. Of course, there were still the incompetent, corrupt, and plain evil ones around, but he would deal with them soon enough, and then only the somewhat competent should remain.
Michael’s gaze wandered to the doors as Kiran, Rayakan, and Pan finally arrived at the meeting. He quickly excused himself from the discussion and hurried over to them.
“What is happening, Michael? Everyone seems to be unusually on edge,” Kiran asked while glancing at the different groups.
The young count quickly explained what was going on and the same kind of brooding expression quickly settled on the old mage’s face.
“I am gonna need your magical expertise for this. Normally the kingdom counters mages with augmenters but we both know that that is more of a bandage than a cure,” Michael said, and Kiran nodded.
“Of course, my primary duty is to assist you. Going into battle is nothing new for me,” he replied and looks over at Rayakan with a questioning look.
The old woman seemed deep in thought for a few moments before she slowly began shaking her head. “My primary duty is to my students, and as long as they are not directly threatened, I will not leave. Do you think the clans will reach here?”
“No, they will raze Grent, and maybe attack Emall if everything goes a little too well for them, but they will not reach here,” Michael answered truthfully.
“I thought so, then I will not join the army. I am no soldier; I am a teacher.”
Kiran looked like he wanted to protest but Michael waved him off. “I understand. I hope you will help if something happens here in my absence though.”
“Of course, I might be a cranky old hag sometimes, but I do appreciate what you have done for us. I will do what I can to defend what is dear to you, from here.” Michael smiled at her genuine words; it wasn’t too often that she dropped her ‘cranky old hag’ persona but every time she did Michael became a little more comfortable with her.
“I will help,” came an unexpected proclamation. Three pairs of eyes focused on the hooded Pan as she fixated Michael with her yellow eyes.
“The hells you will,” Rayakan rumbled, her softness having vanished in the blink of an eye. “You are way too young to go to war, you are also still my student, and I forbid it!”
“Master, we both know that I am advanced enough that most mages would already consider my training finished. I will have to leave the barrow at some point, and I think leaving to help my friend is a noble reason to do so,” Pan argued.
“Being noble is a sham,” Rayakan spat back. “The only thing being noble gets you is dead.”
Michael looked over to Kiran, but the mage obviously wouldn’t have any part in this discussion and so Michael decided that it would probably be wise to follow his example.
“Master, we are not lurking in the shadows anymore where compassion and helping people can get us discovered and killed. I don’t want to sit around and hide anymore! If I have to go and help Michael protect not only his people but us as well then, I am gonna do it with or without your blessing,” Pan retorted with so much steel in her eyes that Rayakan had to back down.
The old mage scoffed and turned away a little, “Fine! Do what you want but don’t come haunting me if you end up dying.”
Pan smiled softly at her master; she knew her too well to be insulted by her antics. The satyr then turned to Michael and declared, “I am with you, just tell me where you want me.”
“I am glad to have you, Pan. You will join me in the vanguard, having some more magic support should prove helpful in our task,” Michael said with a genuine smile.
“Good, because I am way too old to rush and sneak around,” Kiran grumbled which caused the two younger mages to laugh.